


Rise of the Empress

by Masterweaver



Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: Fanmade Background, Gen, Nyakuza spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-13 06:07:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18934969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterweaver/pseuds/Masterweaver
Summary: A life is marked by scars. The remnants of struggle and triumph, of loss and resolution, of glory and sorrow.But scars do not bind. They release.





	Rise of the Empress

Insignificant.

That about summed up the entire area. A bend in a railroad, attended to by an abandoned hutch with locked doors. Dry grass, through which meandered a few beetles. The rising sun, peppering the land with just enough heat to be noticeable. Crates, some opened, some not, resting to the side. It was an oddity of an earlier age, when the trains were run by steam instead of cats and needed regular refueling. The structure hadn't been torn down because...

Well, why bother? It was insignificant. Resting on an insignificant patch of land, filled with insignificant tools, and with an insignificant kit resting on the roof.

She had a name, of course, but there was nobody here to say it, nobody here to hear it. And she preferred that, actually. She'd heard it enough, slung at her mockingly day and day again. For something she couldn't even control, a factor of her birth plain as the mismatched eyes on her face. Here, at least, there were none to call attention. None to make her feel low.

Here she had nobody to prove anything to.

Nobody but herself.

Her tail flicked idly as she lounged on the roof, stretching her claws out on the rotten wood. It was another insignificant day, in this insignificant place, for an insignificant misfit. Like it had been yesterday. Like it had been the day before. Like it had been every day she could remember...

...something in her wasn't satisfied with that. But she couldn't change it.

Her ears perked at the faint rattling in the distance. It wasn't a new sound, not by a long shot--it signified the only thing worth paying attention to. The Noble Aspiration, a train that connected small country settlements to the growing capital. She looked into the distance, watching the massive feline bounding down the rails with a line of carts leashed to its harness; the nekā was looking left and right as it rumbled toward her, paws beating on the track faster than any mortal creature could hope. Strange, how even a thing with no real intelligence could be more important than she was.

An envy boiled within her as she watched the train approach. Why couldn't she be on that train? Make her way to the capital, become something worth noticing, a jewel of cat kind? What did the riders have that she didn't... plans. Wealth. Connections. The luck of the draw, as with her eyes, something she couldn't even control. A factor of her birth.

It wasn't fair. No, worse than that--it wasn't fair, and she couldn't change it. Even if she had the money for a ticket, what would she do in the capital? Find a job as a jeweler? Join a gang of thugs? Sell outfits to children on the street?

The train drew closer, and she growled as she watched. Helpless. Worthless. Like every time before, she would see it pass, so close she could step on the carts, and then it would be gone. It wasn't like she could just jump on, after all...

...or... could she?

No, that would be ridiculous. It was moving so fast that it would take a strong claw grip to hang on. Then again, she had clambered onto the roof of this hutch...

The nekā would stop her--well, it might have. If she were in front of it. But if she jumped on top of the carts, it wouldn't see her.

If the train staff caught her, they would... do what, exactly? Throw her off? While the train was running? Sure, they might set her aground at the next station... but that would still be closer to the capital.

Which... she still didn't know what she would do when she got there. She was young, though, and crafty. Sure, she might not have a real home for a bit. But opportunity wasn't something that simply appeared, all wrapped in a bow, for the one who needed it. Opportunity was something to be hunted, stalked, morsel by morsel, sometimes consumed immediately and sometimes squirreled away for another day. If she remained here, waiting, forever, she would be as she was told she was, nothing.

But here, she had nobody to prove anything to but herself.

And she wanted to prove to herself she had potential.

She rose, her hackles tensing, as the train rumbled closer. Her paws spread on the planks, braced as her slitted eyes focused on the nekā. A crooked tail twitched as her claws curled...

The massive feline rushed past,

and

  she

    pounced.

Her claws scraped against the steel of the train as it rushed beneath her, and for a single terrifying instant she thought she would be flung back, battered against the tracks--and then they caught a seam, a nut, the edge of a cart, and her paws hit the metal with a jerk. She pressed herself flat against the surface of the train, ears folding against the wind as she squinted forward.

Behind her, an insignificant bend in the railroad, tended to by an insignificant hutch, rested in an insignificant field some distance from an insignificant town. Behind her insignificant beetles crawled through insignificant grass and over insignificant crates. Behind her lay an insignificant name, marker of an insignificant birth, and remnant of an insignificant past.

None of them would ever understand what had happened, what they might have witnessed had they bothered to pay any attention. And that was fine with her. The only person she had to prove anything to was herself after all. Herself, and all the capital city. It wouldn't be easy. It might very well be impossible. All in all, the risk was dangerous and foolhardy. And she knew it.

Clinging desperately to the roof of a fast-moving train, mismatched eyes peering through a brutal wind that threatened to rip her off the speeding vehicle at any second, her life dependant on claws that were battered and screaming with strain....

....the kit pulled her lips back, sharp teeth gleaming in a predatory grin of anticipation.


End file.
